General nonsense gaming edition.

[Mark Connolly]

Quite amusing that the computer games industry wasn't set up for people WFH

[forameus]

17 hours ago, Mark Connolly said:

Quite amusing that the computer games industry wasn't set up for people WFH

It's not necessarily just not set up for it.  I'm a developer, and although there were a few teething issues, by the end of that first week we were pretty much set up to do everything we could do before.  But then it's down to the individual person.  You get all these glowing stories of people who are desperate to stay working from home because they find they're more productive, then you get those that are the complete opposite.  Communication is also utter baws.  Zoom calls where everyone is on a different length delay is no match for just walking around to someone's desk and asking them something.  You could have absolutely perfect setups, but if some in your team can't quite take to it, it can have an effect.

I can't fucking wait to get back into the office, and that's from someone who regularly did a day a week at home before all of this

[BFTD]

BBC article about why people buy unfinished video games: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-56666596

Naively thought it was going to be about pre-ordering and the unfinished state of many games from the big publishers but, of course, it's about early access and people buying advance copies from small devs who'd likely be unable to finish the games otherwise.

Not a word about how Early Access is easy for gamers to swallow because the industry's trained us to work as unpaid QA testers for decades.

[Miguel Sanchez]

13 hours ago, BFTD said:

BBC article about why people buy unfinished video games: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-56666596

Naively thought it was going to be about pre-ordering and the unfinished state of many games from the big publishers but, of course, it's about early access and people buying advance copies from small devs who'd likely be unable to finish the games otherwise.

Not a word about how Early Access is easy for gamers to swallow because the industry's trained us to work as unpaid QA testers for decades.

Your problem here is clicking on something from the BBC's newsbeat section. 

[Gaz]

Forgot to post last night but I got my first ever win on Fortnite!

[Homer Thompson]

18 minutes ago, Gaz said:

Forgot to post last night but I got my first ever win on Fortnite!

[Mr. Brightside]

I would just like to add, that you absolutely "beat" FromSoftware games.

[NotThePars]

2 hours ago, Gaz said:

Forgot to post last night but I got my first ever win on Fortnite!

Good going, brother. Think I hit my 20th Warzone win last night anaw and got the final two kills for the boys. Some dunt winning BRs, innit?

Edited April 11, 2021 by NotThePars

[SANTAN]

2 hours ago, Gaz said:

Forgot to post last night but I got my first ever win on Fortnite!

I think this is the first season where I've not had one. I've only played 2 games right enough! 

[Gaz]

2 hours ago, Stormzy said:

I think this is the first season where I've not had one. I've only played 2 games right enough! 

I haven't played it in months and got my first win in my third match.

I am atrocious at building which usually means I don't finish any higher than Top 10. Got really lucky with this one, didn't have to build anything.

[SANTAN]

9 minutes ago, Gaz said:

I haven't played it in months and got my first win in my third match.

I am atrocious at building which usually means I don't finish any higher than Top 10. Got really lucky with this one, didn't have to build anything.

Do you play solos or with squads? 

Aye you need to be good at building to keep up and I've stopped playing because I'm on the PS5 now and you cant use a PS4 controller to play Fortnite for some stupid reason, I used to sweat it quite a bit and had one of the controllers with back paddles, I reckon they're essential if you're trying to even come close to keeping up with most of the players and I just can't bring myself to playing on the PS5 with no paddles. 

I'd love for the game to have some major reset but sadly I feel like it's completely lost it's soul and has became a husk for advertisers to use at any given cost. I hadn't played for a few months and then tried this season and in the opening cut scene it was just Alien versus Lara Croft x Star Wars + Ghostbusers ÷ Avengers. 

[Gaz]

15 hours ago, Stormzy said:

Do you play solos or with squads? 

Aye you need to be good at building to keep up and I've stopped playing because I'm on the PS5 now and you cant use a PS4 controller to play Fortnite for some stupid reason, I used to sweat it quite a bit and had one of the controllers with back paddles, I reckon they're essential if you're trying to even come close to keeping up with most of the players and I just can't bring myself to playing on the PS5 with no paddles. 

I'd love for the game to have some major reset but sadly I feel like it's completely lost it's soul and has became a husk for advertisers to use at any given cost. I hadn't played for a few months and then tried this season and in the opening cut scene it was just Alien versus Lara Croft x Star Wars + Ghostbusers ÷ Avengers. 

I just play Solos as my family life means finding times when I'd be available for Squads isn't really possible. Aye some of the merchandising seems OTT. Having said that I wish I'd unlocked the Mandalorian costume

[SANTAN]

4 minutes ago, Gaz said:

I just play Solos as my family life means finding times when I'd be available for Squads isn't really possible. Aye some of the merchandising seems OTT. Having said that I wish I'd unlocked the Mandalorian costume

Aye that's fair enough, I used to love solos but don't have the patience anymore. 

I'm sure it'll come back out whenever a new season of the show does, I managed to get Kylo Ren which I was very happy with, one of my mates gifted me the Rangers skin which I was thrilled about until I realised it came with the celtc one.. 

[BFTD]

I'd no idea that, for two months in 2002, Greece banned the playing of video games.

[Steve_Wilkos]

Just installed Disco Elysium on my PS4 - will hopefully get cracked into it over the next few days.

[NotThePars]

42 minutes ago, Steve_Wilkos said:

Just installed Disco Elysium on my PS4 - will hopefully get cracked into it over the next few days.

I'll give you one piece of advice. If you by some miracle land an improbable punch, follow up with the most spectacular move you can.

[Steve_Wilkos]

I'll give you one piece of advice. If you by some miracle land an improbable punch, follow up with the most spectacular move you can.

No idea what you're on about - but, thanks! Will do.

[NotThePars]

3 minutes ago, Steve_Wilkos said:

1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

I'll give you one piece of advice. If you by some miracle land an improbable punch, follow up with the most spectacular move you can.

No idea what you're on about - but, thanks! Will do.

You probably won't get to find out but on the off-chance. Go for the big daft kick.

[GNU_Linux]

The Looming killswitch lurking in aging playstation hardware

Unless something changes, an issue lurking in older PlayStations' internal timing systems threatens to eventually make every PS4 game and all downloaded PS3 games unplayable on current hardware. Right now, it's not a matter of if but when this problem will occur.

This ticking firmware time bomb has been known in certain PlayStation preservation and hacking circles for a while. But it's gaining new attention amid Sony's recently announced decision to shut down the online stores for PS3, PSP, and Vita software. While that impending store shutdown won't impact players' abilities to play and re-download previously purchased software for now, the eventual wider shutdown of PSN servers for these aging consoles could have a much more drastic effect on the playability of a wide swath of games.

What’s the problem?

The root of the coming issue has to do with the CMOS battery inside every PS3 and PS4, which the systems use to keep track of the current time (even when they're unplugged). If that battery dies or is removed for any reason, it raises an internal flag in the system's firmware indicating the clock may be out of sync with reality.

After that flag is raised, the system in question has to check in with PSN the next time it needs to confirm the correct time. On the PS3, this online check happens when you play a game downloaded from the PlayStation Store. On the PS4, this also happens when you try to play retail games installed from a disc. This check has to be performed at least once even if the CMOS battery is replaced with a fresh one so the system can reconfirm clock consistency.

Why does the PlayStation firmware care so much about having the correct time? On the PS3, the timer check is used to enforce any "time limits" that might have been placed on your digital purchase (as confirmed by the error message: "This content has a time limit. To perform this operation go to settings date and time settings set via internet"). That check seems to be required even for downloads that don't have any actual set expiration date, adding a de facto one-time online check-in requirement for systems after their internal batteries fail.

On the PS4, though, the timing check is apparently intended to make sure PSN trophy data is registered accurately and to prevent players from pretending to get trophies earlier than they actually had. You'd think this check could be segregated from the ability to load the non-trophy portions of the game, but player testing has shown that this seems to be a requirement to get PS4 games to load at all.

An eventual issue

None of this is a huge problem for most PlayStation owners right now. Yes, the 10- to 20-year lifespan on your average CMOS battery is slowly running out, especially for the earliest PS3 hardware. But replacing the battery and resyncing the internal timer with PSN is a relatively minor annoyance for the time being (assuming you can find a Wi-Fi hotspot and PSN isn't suffering one of its rare outages).

But nothing lasts forever, as Sony's recent decisions regarding older PlayStation online stores show. At some point in the future, whether it's in one year or 100 years, Sony will shut off the PSN servers that power the timing check for hardware it no longer considers important. After that, it's only a matter of time before failing CMOS batteries slowly reduce all PS3 and PS4 hardware to semi-functional curios.

Sony could render the problem moot relatively easily with a firmware update that limits the system functions tied to this timing check. Thus far, though, Sony hasn't publicly indicated it has any such plans and hasn't responded to multiple requests for comment from Ars Technica. Until it does, complicated workarounds that make use of jailbroken firmware are the only option for ensuring that aging PlayStation hardware will remain fully usable well into the future.

Shit like this is why emulation is necessary & important for preservation.

[NotThePars]

It's been a relatively bad few weeks for Sony publicity wise but if they're still crushing the console sales I doubt they'll be that bothered. I do feel far more positively about Microsoft's current trajectory though.